Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.• Video Below: Bighorn sheep capture, transport and release
• Photo Showcase: Bighorn sheep
* * *
HARRISON, Neb. — They prepared for months, drove for days, snatched sleep for a few hours. And in a minute, it was done.
They were bruised, scraped, exhausted — and swelled with pride.
Some were ready to do it all again.
Nineteen Nebraskans claimed a footnote in the state's natural heritage history last week when they captured and transported 40 bighorn sheep from Canada and released them in a rugged corner of northwest Nebraska's Pine Ridge.
Todd Nordeen of Alliance, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission wildlife manager in the Panhandle who led the Canada expedition, said the state has a reputation for "getting in the game, making things work and getting things done" when it comes to relocating sheep.
The hand-picked crew endured a week of 18- to 20-hour work days to bring back the bighorns.
"It was a trip of a lifetime and a unique experience to reintroduce them here," said Dan Kling, a conservation officer. He lives in Harrison, near where the bighorns were set free at Sowbelly Ranch.
Western Nebraska once had tens of thousands of bighorn sheep. By the early 1900s, habitat loss, disease and unregulated hunting wiped them out.
The transplanted sheep created Nebraska's fifth herd in a Game and Parks reintroduction program that began in 1981, when six bighorns from South Dakota were released in fenced grassland and buttes at nearby Fort Robinson State Park.
Nebraska's goal is to establish free-ranging herds in places like the Pine Ridge and Wildcat Hills for hunting and viewing opportunities.
The transplanted bighorns were part of a wild herd living on a reclaimed open-pit coal mine on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta. They were captured under a net the Nebraskans set up over a site baited with alfalfa — a treat like candy to bighorns in the heart of a Canadian winter.
The sheep were loaded into four horse trailers brought from Nebraska for the haul south. The five rams and 35 ewes that arrived at Sowbelly Ranch less than 48 hours later were not eased into their new home. The trailer doors opened and the bighorns bounded out of sight into the canyons and rugged, rocky hills.
But they didn't vanish. Each bighorn is wearing a tracking device on a collar. Satellites track the rams and telemetry technicians on the ground trail ewes.
 |
| Top row, from left: Becker, Studnicka, Cling Bottom row: Schenbeck, Nordeen, Morova |
"We'll be on those animals daily," said Greg Schenbeck, a Game and Parks wildlife biologist at Crawford.
Schenbeck, colleague Dean Studnicka and others are closely monitoring the bighorns to learn how they dispersed and if they survive.
Over time, tracking helps biologists monitor the herd health by observing how many lambs are born, how many survive and herd mortality rates. Biologists also spy on bighorns with spotting scopes to check for coat conditions, injuries or scours as clues to health problems. The sheep are sensitive and vulnerable to disease. They are considered an at-risk species.
The Canada journey was Studnicka's fourth trip to bring bighorns to Nebraska. He was a member of teams that traveled to Colorado and Montana for earlier reintroductions at other sites.
"To be part of bringing back one of the natives is a real opportunity," he said.
Chris Becker of Minatare, a Game and Parks wildlife biologist who sometimes helps with the two bighorn herds in the Wildcat Hills, said a wildfire that burned thousands of acres in Sowbelly Canyon six years ago created ideal bighorn habitat by removing pine trees from the hills.
Bighorns favor landscapes with large, open vistas so they can watch for predators.
"They ought to do well up there," Becker said. "It's great to get them back to their native range and see them where they should be."
Mike Morava, superintendent at Fort Robinson, said the park's bighorn herd is a popular attraction, especially when lambs are born near the route of wilderness Jeep tours.
"Fort Rob has a lot of attractions, but the sheep are an attraction to themselves," he said. "It makes it a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
Kling, the conservation officer, said he never tires of spotting bighorns seemingly defying gravity as they perch on sheer rock walls along Fort Robinson's Smiley Canyon Road.
When the story of bighorn reintroductions to Nebraska is written, there will be more footnotes to the Canada chapter besides Nordeen's crew.
They include rancher Jim Voeller, who opened his Sowbelly Ranch to the herd, and Iowa's chapter of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, which made a significant contribution to help finance the trip.
"It's our job as wildlife resource managers to bring a native species back to the land where they once existed," Nordeen said. "It's been a good thing, and we're going to step it up a notch."
Nordeen said bighorns are popular with the public and don't cause landowners much grief.
"They're just majestic," he said. "Treat them with respect and be appreciative of the fact that they were once here and now we're getting an opportunity to bring them back and enjoy them."
Contact the writer:
402-444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com
* * *
• Video: Bighorn sheep capture, transport and release:
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
